Life on the Natural Path
by Starrika
Summary: Bella chooses life and finds herself in the process.


"_Independence is happiness." – Susan B. Anthony_

In the end, Rosalie drives her home while Alice flies to Italy. She shivers in her wedding gown, stuffed into some monstrous thing that Alice picked out and teetering in her "something blue" heels she would never have the grace to wear. She staggers into her bedroom, encumbered by trains and petticoats, knowing that no matter her choice she is going to _die_, _die_, _die_.

Rosalie's hands are gentle as they undo every perfect, tiny pearl button. Cool fingers run soothingly down her arms and Bella cannot keep her teeth from chattering. Someone is crying, and there's such a disconnect between her ears and her brain and her mouth because it seems to take Bella ages to realize the person crying is her.

_I can't_. _I can't_. _I _can't.

She shakes her head hard, and pins begin to fly. Her hair springs free, hanging in matted clumps but her hands shake too much to pick out the remaining, hanging pins. Again, Rosalie soothes with perfect hands and perfect phrases. Rosalie helps her under the covers, whispering for her to _live_. In her mind, Bella's laugh is hollow and bitter, but in the disconnect, all that escapes her mouth is a broken sob.

Rosalie shuts the front door of Charlie's house. Because of the damp, the wood frame swells, and Rosalie has to pull hard for it to close. There is a permanence to its thump, and Alice leans her head back against the leather headrest of her seat in first class. Bella's future with Edward has disappeared.

XOXOX

The Cullens are gone in the morning. Rosalie _Hale_, however, is not.

XOXOX

Bella has never been independent. Her mother was her best friend before baseball players and vampires turned her world topsy-turvy. The prospect of truly standing on her own makes her legs shake like a young colt's.

Rosalie is sharp with her, impatience marring her perfect expression. Bella was getting sick of perfection, anyway.

XOXOX

She doesn't let Bella call the rez – doesn't let her call anyone except Renee, Charlie, and Angela Weber. Renee's oblivious, Charlie's worried, and Angela's more perceptive than Bella would have thought. She decides to stay on campus for fall break.

Rosalie attacks college as if it were a personal insult to be there. Although, after Columbia med school, perhaps it is. She makes Bella go to class and eat in the dining hall by herself, and when Bella tries to explain her feelings in terms of _Jane Eyre _and other complicated literary allusions, Rosalie laughs in her face.

Rosalie asks, _How can a person with so little self-worth be so self-centered?_

It stings. Bella finds herself down the hall, not with a boy, but one of the other girls in her hall, bitching about roommates and eating Ben and Jerry's _Chubby Hubby_.

XOXOX

Rosalie tries to make her rush a sorority and Bella puts her foot down.

XOXOX

Rosalie pledges _Delta Zeta_ and makes Bella come to all the parties anyway. If any of the other sisters have a problem, one icy look from Rosalie quells the dissent. Bella's amused to see others just as intimidated by Rosalie as she was, that first day at Forks High School.

It doesn't hurt as much to think about Edward (or Jacob) until she drinks. She's sobbing as she vomits back up all the jungle juice she drank, and Rosalie's cool fingers slide over her forehead to pull her hair away from her face. She looks disgusted but her voice is soothing.

Afterwards, Bella feels drained and spends the next day lethargically in bed. Rosalie lets her wallow until Sunday morning, when she bitchily asks her if she's turning back into a zombie.

Bella tells her to fuck off, but she gets out of bed.

XOXOX

She goes to the party the next weekend, even though her stomach still turns at the thought of drinking.

XOXOX

Christmas comes and goes. Bella stubbornly stays on campus, not wanting to leave her own personal Switzerland. Rosalie leaves to visit Emmett, and Bella gives in to a moment of weakness with a boy from the first floor on December 23rd.

Christmas morning, she gets a call from Alice whose first words are, _Bella, he's so cute!_

Bella doesn't know how to respond. What do you say to someone who had a voyeuristic vision of your first time?

XOXOX

Rosalie's back when "first floor boy," stops by to ask her for coffee. She raises an eyebrow at Bella, the expression reminiscent of Emmett, and Bella's face flames. Instead of reproof, Rosalie offers makeup.

Bella tries to flirt, and everything is oh-so-awkward between her and Dylan. He's red, she's red and somehow her coffee ends up all over his shirt.

They decide to pretend drunken eggnog-and-_It's a Wonderful Life_ sex never happened.

When he starts dating another girl down the hall, it's not a big life-ending drama. Sometimes they share lunch in the dining hall before class. Amy gets jealous and then gets over it.

XOXOX

When she calls home (when did Charlie become home over Renee?), he tries to tell her Jacob's-

XOXOX

Bella apologizes over and over for hanging up on him. Charlie laughs, and never tries to tell her about Jacob again.

XOXOX

Alice shows up for Spring Break, and the three of them take an impromptu trip to Paris. Somehow, shopping is easier. It's something enjoyable, and Bella can't help but wonder what has changed. She finds kitten heels she doesn't mind wearing and Rosalie glares every time Alice tries to buy her four inch Christian Louboutin heels.

Somehow, it becomes a little easier to say no. _No_, to the blue shirt she doesn't want to buy. _No_, to Alice's wheedling over the too-expensive dress. _No_, _no_, _no _to thoughts of Edward (and Jacob).

They pretend to drink champagne while Bella gets drunk off Veuve Clicquot and she can't help but giggle when the French boys try to dazzle her with accents and cheese. The French have the most _lovely_ cheese.

Bella develops a fascination for Bordeaux and Brie. She falls madly in love with Camembert and never wants to leave Chèvre à la Rose.

_Well_, Rosalie says archly. _We should have given you cheese months ago_.

XOXOX

As Alice leaves them at the airport, she casually drops into the conversation that the Volturi will never bother her. Futures change – even theirs, with the flap of a butterfly wing.

XOXOX

Rosalie crushes her cell phone, grabbing it out of her hands before she can call Edward (Jacob?). Finals are looming in three weeks, and she's not letting Bella fail out now.

XOXOX

Spring slips into summer, and Bella avoids Forks. She visits Renee out of guilt and returns for summer classes. She takes a job waiting tables and Rosalie goes north, ostensibly to get out of the sun, but Bella knows she misses Emmett.

When she wants to talk to Edward, she writes a letter to Carlisle instead. It takes her nine tries to find the words to ask – _did I make the right decision_?

Once she finishes, she burns the letter. Even if it was the wrong decision, she made her choice. It's easier to live with (easier just to _live_) than she imagined.

XOXOX

Sophomore year brings an apartment and an escape from disgusting dining hall food. It also brings the realization that she has friends – somehow study partners and _DZ_s and yes, even drunken hookups have coalesced into a group where she belongs.

She lives with Rosalie, but she spends her evenings watching America's Next Top Model, the Bachelor, and American Idol with Sarah, discussing Baudrillard's theory of the simulacra and its relation to reality TV. She gets promoted to bartender at Stadium and learns to mix cosmopolitans for Sex and the City reruns (even though she hates the show). Bella hosts grown-up dinner parties with her famous lasagna and its homemade red wine tomato sauce. She gets dragged to football games and doesn't complain _that_ much. Dylan even teaches her the art of beer pong.

Bella parties and studies, writing papers and not thinking about the future. For so long, she'd been preoccupied with it – for now, she didn't even want to think what to do with a B.A. in English.

One day, she's laughing on the couch with all of them, even Rosalie, crammed into their tiny apartment and she realizes this is more than just friends. She's not better than any of them, but she's not _worse_, either.

She's just Bella. And it feels good.

XOXOX

She makes plans for a road trip to Florida for Spring Break, and then feels guilty when she realizes Rosalie can't come along.

XOXOX

Rosalie tells her to stop being so masochistic – the sunburn she'll get in Florida will hurt her enough without the unnecessary guilt.

XOXOX

When she returns from Florida, she gets a phone call from Alice. This time, before Alice can speak, Bella asks, _Are you _trying _to watch my sex life_?

Alice just laughs.

XOXOX

Bella thinks, for a while, that maybe her calling is as a writer. She pours out all her feelings and tries to capture her fantastical high school experience. Reading back the first chapter, she rolls her eyes at the repetition of _perfect_, _dazzling_, and _topaz_. The next great American novel it is not.

It is, however, startling. It takes her three days to ask Rosalie, _Do you think I really loved him_?

Rosalie's eyes are soft when she replies, _In a way, you did_.

XOXOX

Just before things get hectic with finals, Rosalie tells her that she won't be coming back for junior year. Bella the (vampire, werewolf) trouble magnet is gone. Bella the (reckless, normal) college student has taken her place.

_You don't need me_, Rosalie tells her.

_No, but I'll miss you_, Bella replies.

They spend more time together than they had in the past six months, Bella knowing she won't see her again. It hurts, but the ache in her chest isn't a gaping void. This is life – bittersweet.

_Will Edward_-? Bella begins, unable to finish the sentence. His name had gone unspoken between the two of them for almost three years.

_We'll take care of him_, Rosalie promises. _He's not okay, but he will be_. _We all still have some growing up to do_.

Unbidden, Bella's thoughts stray to Jacob and the growing he's done. This time, Bella smashes her cell phone. She has finals to study for.

XOXOX

_You sure are clumsy with those phones, Bella_, Charlie tells her, but he sends her a new one all the same.

XOXOX

In a college town, most people don't stick around during the summers. Bella falls in with Chris, who tends bar with her on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Soon, they're staying up all night after closing down, trying to watch the sun rise. He doesn't dazzle and he doesn't growl, and if she were asked, she doesn't love him.

The sex, however, is good.

They lie in front of fans eating popsicles during the summer heat (neither of them has air conditioning in their apartments). They go swimming in the lake, down near Pfeiffer Park, and Bella's a little disappointed at the sight of his torso in the sunlight. In the dark, she can pretend his abdomen looks like-

_She's met her quota of hot shirtless guys in her life already_, she thinks.

He has red hair and too many freckles and things are fine until she finds out he slept with another girl and now she might have the clap.

She doesn't, and Bella hits him when he doesn't understand why she's not going to sleep with him again. This time, she doesn't break any knuckles.

XOXOX

Junior year is a blur. The one thing that sticks out is her decision that she's had enough school. She doesn't want to go to grad school – she wants to go _home_.

XOXOX

She takes Charlie by surprise when she announces her return to Forks. She has no summer classes to take and no pressing desire to tend bar with Chris (ugh). Bella catches up with Angela Newton (formerly Weber) and finally enjoys her time with Mike. They talk college and sports and everything in between, feeling as if they're caught between childhoods and being an adult.

It's shockingly fun.

Plans coalesce. Somehow, they're becoming business partners for a coffee shop (the teenagers in Forks need _something_ to do) and a bookstore (the adults in Forks need _something_ decent to read). Bella talks excitedly about poetry readings and Angela plans recipes for daily baked goods. Mike just smiles and invests the money that they've pooled.

Somehow, this talk of the future isn't quite so daunting to Bella.

XOXOX

Her last phone call with Alice is cryptic and uplifting, all at the same time. When Bella tells her to say hello to everyone for her, they both know she really means _goodbye_.

XOXOX

Graduation looms, and Bella still can't believe she's standing here, _alive_, in a cap and gown in front of Charlie and Renee. She tries not to cry at the thought of leaving her friends – Sarah's reality television deconstruction, the pub crawls with Amy, and the epic games of battleship beer pong with Dylan. On her last night in town, she gets drunk on cheap champagne and cries. No one holds her hair back when she gets sick, and while she would have liked it, she didn't need anyone to.

When she graduates, she doesn't think of Edward (or Jacob). She thinks of Rosalie (and Alice).

XOXOX

There's a Mercedes convertible waiting in her driveway, when she gets back to Forks. In the glove box, the deed is in her name and there's a thirty thousand dollar check (with a sheet of stock market predictions, courtesy of Alice).

XOXOX

They're still working on stocking the bookstore, but the coffee shop has been open six months when Jacob comes sauntering in.

_It's been a long time, Bells_, he tells her, eyes alight.

She smiles, feeling warm. He isn't even touching her yet.

_It's been a good time_, she tells him honestly.

XOXOX

Bella doesn't let him sweep her off her feet. She wants her own two feet to walk down the natural path.


End file.
